It is always great to see friends over the holidays. Gary Savage stopped by Z Car Garage from Florida and shared these photos from his visit, enjoy!
(above) Randy Jaffe’s BRE Datsun 240Z.
One of the real joys this holiday season is the opportunity to say thank you and wish you the very best for the new year. From all of us at Z Car Garage we thank our friends, family and customers again for another exciting and productive year! Enjoy our 2021 recap and upcoming projects. Please note our holiday closure below:
ZCG will be closed from 12/24/21 and we will re-open for business on 1/3/22.
We had a busy year and though the shop will be closed, we won’t leave you hanging for the holidays. Many zcarblog features have yet to be published like our belated race report from the 2021 Velocity Invitational in addition to client stories.
Before we take a look back at highlights from 2021, here are several exciting projects coming along at the shop:
Jeff and Ryan B’s LS3-powered Z came to us for mechanical sorting. It’s now sporting our Z Car Garage Big-Brakes (for small wheels) and Z Car Garage CV Axles. Ryan successfully ran the Targa California Rallye in blistering summer heat. He recently got a new set of VOLK TE37V wheels full report soon!
The OMS Pace Car
This is a 1972 Official OMS Pace Car Duplicate. It is at present one of only two known survivors . Fifty were originally produced by Nissan Motors to commemorate the DATSUN 240Z being selected by the Ontario Motor Speedway to Pace the 1972 “U.S.A.C. California 500 Championship”. It really is a small Datsun world, as the official OMS pace car is none other than our very own Joel Anderson #49 IMSA GTU 240Z .
This OMS duplicate belongs to our long time customer and friend Linda. She acquired it from a family in SoCal and tasked ZCG with making it a nice driver. Full report soon but it got loaded up today for its journey to Colorado!
Jim’s 1971 Datsun 240z returned for a Rebello 3.2L with triple-Mikuni carbs on a Harada intake and CD009a 6-speed transmission:
David’s 240Z
Long-time friend and client David attended a track day at Laguna Seca. This Z was built over 15 years ago and sill running strong. We prepped his Z for the track, full report soon!
Dyno Tuning your 350z/370z/Q/G
We have been dyno tuning your late model Nissan/Infiniti sports car daily. Bolt-ons, UPREV tuning. Our customers leave happy with more performance. Call us to schedule an appointment! Here are just a few cars:
Aaron’s Q50:
Randy’s 1970 Safari Tribute Z lived an eventful life this year. It was in Los Angeles to be filmed for Nissan’s commercials and also served as Randy’s ride for cruising around Monterey Car Week. We installed a new engine and made some suspension changes. Though it’s back at home in Georgia it will get a full ZCG-style feature.
One of many Z32s we are working on, Steve’s will get a full report soon:
Highlights from 2021
Even though 2021 was crazy year for all of us we still managed to have fun on and off the track. The shop made some really great progress as well.
Enjoy these highlights from the year and Z you in 2022!
Datsunworks
Z Car Garage is excited to collaborate with Datsunworks and develop their brilliant KN20 dual-overhead cam (DOHC) cylinder head designed for the Nissan inline-6 L-Series engine. You can read all about it HERE
2021 was a development year for this drivetrain setup. We continue to extract more power and run longevity testing with owner Gary who has the pleasure of living daily with this beast. More updates to come, but for now enjoy the music this KN20 head provides in the video below!
Filed under: 240z,Parts,Racing
by Alvin G @ 5:10 pm on December 17, 2021
We love to see our parts installed and used on client’s cars. Race car driver and Datsun enthusiast Brad H is running our ZCG CV Axles in this IMSA GTU 240z race car!
Brad is preparing his Z for the next race season and a half shaft failure is not something he wanted to worry about while racing so he replaced them with ZCG CV Axles. He installed set #312 with ease, stock half shafts (left) and ZCG CV Axles (right):
“The rear end is a LSD R200 with a 3.70 gear. I’m not really sensitive to the rear gear ratio because of all of the variability I have in the gear box. It’s connected to the rear hubs by Z Car Garage CV axles. I had been looking for options on axles simply because the thought of going into Nascar 4 at Daytona with 50 year old U-Joint technology made me nervous. I heard about Z Car Garage from Randy Jaffe. We are both in Atlanta and I was at his shop one day because he was kind enough to let me borrow a rear diff to carry as a backup to Daytona. While there, he showed me the CV axles and I reached out to Rob to order a set the next day. We have kept a great relationship ever since.”
Check out Brad’s installation of the ZCG CV Axles and see the Z in action in the video below!
Brad’s IMSA 240Z Build
Let’s hear how Brad found and built his 240Z race car:
“The story of my car starts with a poster I had on my wall as a kid of the Bob Sharp Racing GTU Z that was campaigned in 1976. We raced ITS Z cars back in the late 80’s, but I had always said that if the situation presented itself, I would build a tribute to that car. The original was destroyed in ’76 at the Camel GT at Road Atlanta when Sharp blew a tire coming up to the bridge and hit the embankment hard on drivers left. That left a tribute as the only option.”
Brad found a solid chassis that was running as a track day car in Ontario Canada. Peter Skillins had built the car (www.datsunzcars.com) and had done a fantastic job. The cage was done by Blaise Csida (www.bcracecars.com) who is a well respected Trans Am driver/car builder. In addition to a very robust cage, several additional reinforcements were installed like additional shock tower structures and additional stiffening structures on the front frame rails.
“The car was then sent to Burtin Racing (www.burtinracing.com) here in Atlanta for final assembly and installation of the IMSA GTU body kit that John Washington at ZTrix puts together. It’s a great kit that requires minimal modification to the body panels themselves, but the fabricators at Burtin when a bit further by putting together some additional components to support the kit under my application. Specifically was a new nose frame and airbox set up as well as new customer rear fender inner liners. All body panels are removable with 1/4 turn fasteners and the car can be stripped in less than 3 minutes. The Burtin fabricators (Terry and Damon) work daily preparing/maintaining a top tier Trans Am team (Tomy Drissi and Simon Gregg), the work they do is top notch and highly recommended. All along the way the fabricators at Burtin Racing made small suggestions on performance and safety ideas.”
The motor was built by Steve Nelson at Top End Performance in CA (www.racetep.com). It’s an L28 with a 2MM stroke add that runs at 13.1:1 compression.
“It has a race cam and is fed by 3 Mikuni 44PHHs. Steve and team do a great job on the bottom end, but the reason I went with TEP was that they use Slover head porting. Slover has long been one of the best head preparers in the L series motors going back to the origins of L series racing engines. If you’ve ever seen the work they do you would quickly understand why. Steve also recommended running the Electromotive crankfire ignition system. I was hesitant at first, but was sold very quickly when you get to see ease of timing adjustments and the complete elimination of timing slop you get at over 6-7,000 RPM. That was a great call.”
“The gearbox is a Hewland STA wide the came out of one of Burtin Racing’s TA cars. They upgraded to sequential, so Claudio (the team owner and good friend) recommended we install the Hewland behind the L28 because of its reliability and optionality with gear sets. To do so required a custom adapter that the Burtin guys made on the CAD and removal of the existing tunnel. We went with a Quartermaster dual clutch set up that connected to the 28 spline shaft of the Hewland. With this box installed, I have access to no less than 50 gear sets which lets us gear the car for each track we go to. For Road Atlanta, which is my local track, we run a 2.20/1.88/1.44/1.23/1.09 configuration with a 1:1 spur gear.”
Brad enlisted Andrew at Wheelflip (www.wheelflip.com) who was able to find him 2 matching sets of late 70’s BBS centers with the stock 4X114 bolt patter. After taking many measurements they ended up with 2 sets of gold 16X11 fronts (5.5 outers/5.5 inners) and 16X12 rears (6.5 outers/5.5 inners). Brad runs Goodyear Eagle slicks with the 430 compound:
“The car was fully wrapped in the Bob Sharp Racing livery from 1976 by the same folks that wrap the Burtin Racing TA cars, AAA SignCrafters (www.aaasigncrafters.com). Huge thanks to the folks at Harris Decal (www.harrisdecals.com) for putting together all the special decals that were required to get the look correct”
In mid 2021, Brad moved to his own shop in Buford, GA under the operation of BPH Motorcars, LLC. The car is currently maintained by Jason Howe of Howe Custom Fabrication. Jason was a former fabricator at Burtin Racing as well as for the Panoz racing operation and does fantastic custom work. You can follow Brad’s racing efforts on Instagram. More pictures in the gallery below!
Thanks for your support Brad! We look forward to seeing you on the track for the 2022 race season, LONG LIVE THE Z!
Z Car Garage CV Axles
Over 140 sets of our ZCG CV Axles are installed in client’s cars all over the world. For more information please visit our detailed post our HERE. Below are just a few examples of race cars running out CV Axles:
Race car driver, restorer and Datsun Historian Glenn Chiou is running our ZCG CV Axles in this IMSA GTU 260z race car!
Race car driver and restoration specialist Jim Froula of Racecraft is running ZCG axles in several of his cars:
Set #246 – installed May 2018 on the “Harry Stewart #52” Datsun 510:
Set #247 – installed April 2018 on the 260z
Set #248 – installed on Adam Carolla’s “Greg Sorrentino #90” Datsun 510.
Dear Zcarblog readers, it’s been a busy year and we are catching up on blog posts, so please enjoy our belated race report from October.
WE LOVE RACING! On October 2-3, Classic Sports Racing Group (CSRG) hosted the Charity Challenge at Sonoma Raceway. Z Car Garage had a blast racing and supporting several client’s Datsun 510 race cars running in B-Sedan Group 9 (John Morton Cup). This vintage racing event was totally free for spectators, thanks to CSRG for putting on another great event!
Z Car Garage Supports Five Datsun 510s!
It is our pleasure to bring more enthusiasts into the world of vintage racing. Our services do include full race support and car-preparation to help make client’s race days seamless and worry-free so they can focus on driving. One of our specialties is dyno tuning. Before a race weekend we confirm that your car is running well and make necessary adjustments while on the chassis dyno. Here is Rob dyno tuning Larry Oka’s B-Sedan:
Video of two Datsun 510 B-Sedans (Rob and Tom) and Kelvin in the second video on the dyno. Enjoy the sweet L-series music!
We also provided testing support for Tom, Kelvin, Ed and Larry at Sonoma. A “test day” offers our clients piece-of-mind and a great way to kick off the actual race weekend. While testing we had an engine failure in Tom’s car and a transmission issue in Ed’s car. Thanks to the ZCG crew were able to resolve both with a spare engine and transmission.
Time to Race!
Z Car Garage clients racing for the weekend included:
We are proud of Tom as he finished 10th in 21-car field and grabbed a personal best, clicking off a 1:58 at Sonoma! Here is in-car video of him putting in work for Sunday’s race:
#71 Ed M
#7 Rob Fuller
ZCG owner Rob Fuller, Bay Area Datsun Dealers tribute car
Rob shares his highlights from the race weekend:
“We had a great group and on the first qualifying run I was able to be quickest out there. Started the Sat afternoon races on pole and Tom/Kelvin were mid-pack with Ed in back. I had a beautiful start but by the 4th lap my throttle cable failed. I was about 1.5s ahead of the pack and got my personal best lap time at Sears. Even though I was bummed at the DNF, I got the best seat in the house and watched my boys Tom, Kelvin and Ed go through the field and have a fun race.”
“Josh and Parker from the PNW duked it out, and on the last lap Josh took the win. I know my 510 wasn’t able to finish the race but at least a Datsun won! Saturday’s position determines your position for the next races so I started last in both sunday am and afternoon sessions. First race was 5 laps and I went from 21st to 3rd place. Second race was 7 laps and I went from 21st to 2nd. Thank you to Z Car Garage for the repair and prep to keep my Datsun 510 on the track the rest of weekend. Happy to get Podium, Hard Charger, and the fastest lap of the race. Was great way to end the weekend after the DNF on Saturday. Thanks to CSRG for another amazing event. Do it in a Datsun 510.”
Here is in-car video of Rob threading through the field, enjoy!
You can see more of Rob’s race videos from the CSRG event (and other race) on his YouTube Channel. Give the guy a thumbs up and subscribe while you are there!
A weekend of great racing and good times
This was our first race event with our new Intech aluminum trailer. It was a game changer, allowing ZCG to have a home base in the paddock for our clients to relax and for us to perform crew duties. Speaking of crew, we are grateful to our team including the Corwin’s (Josh, Keith and Bonnie thank you for keeping us safe all weekend), Meghan and Nick. Nick brought his beautiful Datsun 510 wagon that also put in work as a support vehicle:
There were cool cars everywhere in the paddock:
Big thanks to Meghan for taking photos and video around the paddock. Here is a highlight reel of what it’s like at a vintage race…you should join us next time!
Always happy to see friends and newcomers at these events. Greg H from SCCS was there running a Formula Ford…his first time out he placed 5th out of 4o cars! Now that he’s had a taste of Datsun racing Greg is now interested in a B-sedan of his own!
Datsun Car Corral!
CSRG is awesome. Participants were spoiled with FREE parking in the paddock area and full access to the race for the weekend. Our friend and client Linda Williams of ZONC drove her 1972 Datsun 240Z OMS Pace car! Full report on this historically-significant S30 coming to zcarblog shortly.
Our friends from the PNW were in attendance…great camaraderie and even better racing partners:
Rob with RacecraftNW owner and pal Jim Froula. Yes, the Bluebird Coupe we dubbed Sorabird is now back with Racecraft after being with our client Alex Mcdowell for many fun racing seasons.
We hope you enjoyed our race report from the October 2 CSRG Charity Challenge at Sonoma. Thanks agin to CSRG, the ZCG crew and our clients for a really fun event. The 2022 racing season looks amazing, please join us we will announce the event schedule soon. DO IT IN A DATSUN!
More pictures in the gallery below:
Filed under: 240z,r32,R35,Racing,z32
by Alvin G @ 5:10 pm on November 9, 2021
Z Car Garage Shop Update for 11/9/21
We are doing final track preparation for this week’s (November 11-14) race at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca hosted by the Velocity Invitational. Z Car Garage will be participating and providing support for several client cars. We are excited to be racing in Group 7A (1966-1977 IMSA GT):
We will be supporting our client Randy Jaffe who recently acquired the Transcendental Racing Datsun 240Z. This famous 1976 IMSA-GTU Championship-winning 240z will be driven by ex-driver Brad Frisselle’s son, Brian Frisselle:
